Hello, I'm Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces.

You're listening to our podcast that explores the history and stories of our six palaces.

These talks are a collection of some of our best live events.

I really hope you enjoy listening.

In this series of talks by renowned Tudor historians, we closely examine the monarch and man himself, Henry D.8.

These talks were recorded live in collaboration with history today to mark the 500th anniversary of the coronation of Henry D.8.

In this episode, author and historian Philippa Gregory talks about the young Henry,

who she believes was tragically damaged from a young age.

He's not even yet a prince. He's the spare. There's the heir who is Arthur and he's the one that everybody's interested in who's going to be Prince of Wales,

who's going to marry Catherine of Spain, who's going to marry Catherine of Spain,

who's going to inherit the Tudor throne, who is going to be a king forever. And then there is a spare

that actually they're going to pop into the church. Basically, his function is going to be, and we do

know what young royal princes are like when they know they're the spare. His function is going to be

to wait in case he's needed.

And of course, tragically, he was needed. But of course, he didn't know that. When he was being

brought up through his life, his primary influences in his life was possibly, we don't even know

because we're not very clear about how effective his mother was able to be.

But Elizabeth, Princess of York, a daughter of the Plantagenets, the ruling family before the Tudors,

and therefore in one way a constant reminder to the Tudors that their throne was newly established and not necessarily secure.

Even before he was born, there had been pretenders, a series of pretenders actually arriving,

claiming to be other plantagener heirs.

And so Henry the seventh's rule of England and his confidence in his holding of England

...